Abstract

Despite the accelerating growth of private labels, little previous research offered an integrated approach of its role as a driver of store loyalty. In this research we offer an integrative model that includes both consumers’ loyalty towards the private labels, as also other identified store loyalty driven-factors (both in-store and economic factors), in order to assess its relative importance on building store loyalty. Importantly, our framework builds on the four-stage loyalty model (Oliver, J Market, 63: 33–44, 1999) making a distinction between different phases: cognitive, affective, conative, and action.

We run multilevel regression models on a survey data collected online to identify the critical loyalty factors that influence each loyalty stage and the specific contribution of private labels to each loyalty stage. Findings show that there is: (1) a positive contribution of private labels on consumers’ loyalty, across all different loyalty stages, both attitudinal as behavioral, and (2) no homogeneity in terms of driving factors across different loyalty stages, highlighting the importance of our integrative perspective.